Solid Axle Swap BS Thread

Nice! 2.25"?

 

Yup .375 wall. Set it and forget it!

 

I'll probably end up going that route for the rear links.

Speaking of beef, after seeing Mark's bent tie rod (1.50"OD x .25" wall), I decided to beef up mine before I fully weld it together since it's the same dimensions as his. I picked up 1" round cold roll Stressproof 1144 to pack inside the tie rod, as well as the tube protecting the hydro. Supposed to have a tensile strength of 115,000 and yield of 100,000. That should do the trick.

 

It's almost always better to add to the OD of a tube than increase it's overall wall thickness, just saying. You may increase it's strength a little bit but really you're adding weight in the wrong areas. Same reason you see people gun drilling axle shafts for strength. Solid axle shafts still break.

I had the same problem bending a 1.5" x .250 wall DOM tie rod on my first trip out after going to standard crossover. Bent it back straight enough with a Harbor Freight pipe kinker then sleeved it with 1.5" black pipe (some call it poop pipe) from Homie Depot which made it 1.9" OD and over 3/8 thick. After that, I never had any problems resting the truck on the tie rod.

 

.375 was is HUGE! awesomeness

 

Yeah I know that larger diameter is generally considered stronger, I just didn't want to have any potential issues with fitting everything at full bump and/or lock (shit is pretty close as is, esp. in regards to diff cover clearance). I'm pretty sure it'll still work. I hope.

 

Yeah fitting everything is the downside to running larger diameter My tie rod and drag link will connect under the hi-steer arm so I guess I'll have a mid-steer setup, not hi- steer. I'd like to run the tie rod behind the drag link but I don't think it will be feasable since I want a straight panhard.

 

I managed to get all my shit straight. Probably more of an OCD thing than anything else.

 

wow! been following this one for a while. very impressive

 

Does this method of welding on plate to the stock steer arm account for Ackerman angle?

 

Ohhh shiney straight steering

 

I think these are the only Dana 60 steering arms that account for proper Ackerman, made by Northwest Fab. The rest of us don't care about a little extra tire scrub

 

Really? Even on road?

Why not run the 4wheelsupply arms then?

I was going to go with WFOs arms because they're cheap(ish) and say they account for ackerman.

But the 4wheelsupply arms are a good freaking deal if you don't give a damn about ackerman.

 

One thing I have wondered everytime I see this picture...why isn't the tie-rod directly under the panhard when you're at bump? I can see that the panhard bolt is in front of the tie-rod.

Based on how you have them set-up at the pass knuckle one-over-the-other, they should still be that way at bump.

 

Wut? Do you mean the drag link?

I would think it wouldn't matter if the drag link was forward of drivers side knuckle since both knuckles are connected at the same point (pass. side drag link rod end).

 

Derp. Early morning, lol. And yeah I mean draglink.

I don't know if it matters or not, but I have never seen it where its not. Usually the box is positioned relative to the axle so that the draglink is 90° to the pitman arm when straight.

Just never seen it that way is all.

 

Any arm that mounts the tie rod outside where the king pins are, rather than inline with the king pins, will account for ackerman to some degree. The ideal ackerman is you can draw a straight line from the tie rod location, through the kingpin on both sides and the lines converge at the center of the rear axle. Obviously this is totally wheelbase dependent and short wheelbase rigs will need more angle built into the arms (potentially running into wheel/tire clearance issues) compared to longer wheel bases. If you're super concerned about having a perfect ackerman, measure your wheelbase and kingpin width and do some simple geometry to figure out where your tie rod needs to end up to achieve that and pick some off-the-shelf arms from there. Guarantee you won't find one perfect arm for your given wheelbase unless you buy hole-less arms and drill where you need to, aka 4 Wheel Supply arms. I would have gone that route but Chassis Unlimited is local to me and is a friend of mine Many many people drive on the street with Dana 60's and have a hard time believing any of them have perfect ackerman. We aren't building racecars

 

Shoosh.... I prefer racetruck lol point well made.

 

Race truck is good! Mine is part race truck since my tires came off a trophy truck LOL

Another note on perfect ackerman, if it was a huge deal, truck manufacturers would make different tie rod mount locations for different wheelbase vehicles and they don't because its not cost effective to produce such a thing for little benefit.

 

Figured you guys wouldn't mind me asking, cause 40s, but thinking of pulling trigger on some 40" trail grapplers. SO much cheaper than iroks or treps and those were my other 2 choices. I really would love Treps but SO much money. Anything you know that google hasn't told me?